End of the China bull?

[CanOz]

How interesting. Was this money he didn't want to pay tax on? Is there some other reason for hiding his assets?
Does China have a similar taxation system to that which we employ here?
Are the Chinese people able to e.g. invest in a share market, bank deposits etc?
Apologies if the questions are ignorant. I know nothing about China's internal function.

If they knew he had that much money they would assume (correctly) he was taking kick backs, then they would shoot him between the eyes:badass:.

That's why they buy houses for cash, direct from the developer. Its the one of a few things they can do with all their money, as well as spend it on jewelry for their mistresses, super-cars for the their sons, convertibles for their daughters,, holidays, grogg, and weekends of punting in Macau.

If only everyone else could consume like them the rest of the world would be fine!

CanOz

 

[Julia]

If they knew he had that much money they would assume (correctly) he was taking kick backs, then they would shoot him between the eyes:badass:.

That's why they buy houses for cash, direct from the developer. Its the one of a few things they can do with all their money, as well as spend it on jewelry for their mistresses, super-cars for the their sons, convertibles for their daughters,, holidays, grogg, and weekends of punting in Macau.

Ah, I see. Corruption brings its own downside obviously. Having to own apartments to hide the cash seems somewhat counterproductive to me.

Can you comment on the other questions, i.e. does the average Chinese invest in the stock market, having savings in bank deposits etc?

 

[CanOz]

Ah, I see. Corruption brings its own downside obviously. Having to own apartments to hide the cash seems somewhat counterproductive to me.

Can you comment on the other questions, i.e. does the average Chinese invest in the stock market, having savings in bank deposits etc?

No much goes into the equity markets...too many got burned last time and they view it as a casino...they'd rather go to Macau.

They have huge amounts of savings, you cannot believe it. The most unassuming (oppressed ) old lady's are quite wealthy. My mate in Harbin has a little old lady next door and she collects his soft drink bottles for the refund. He separates them just for her. One of his other neighbors was saying that she had five apartments, each worth well over 1 million RMB.

Still collecting bottles....they're phenomenal savers. The banks still pay interest over here.

CanOz

 

[notting]

does the average Chinese invest in the stock market, having savings in bank deposits etc?

They tend to be savers because they know the government will not look after them later on in life. Hence the nation of great consumers coming down the line is a bit of a naive joke. Though there is plenty of consuming in the prince-ling class.

 

[McLovin]

No much goes into the equity markets...too many got burned last time and they view it as a casino...they'd rather go to Macau.

They have huge amounts of savings, you cannot believe it. The most unassuming (oppressed ) old lady's are quite wealthy. My mate in Harbin has a little old lady next door and she collects his soft drink bottles for the refund. He separates them just for her. One of his other neighbors was saying that she had five apartments, each worth well over 1 million RMB.

Still collecting bottles....they're phenomenal savers. The banks still pay interest over here.

CanOz

Can

You might be interested in John Hempton's opinion as to what drives the high saving rate in China.

http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/macroeconomics-of-chinese-kleptocracy.html

Worth the read.

 

[sinner]

Julia, if you are interested in China/its internals, checkout Michael Pettis blog, mpettis.com ...he lives in China and is a professor of economics at (IIRC) Peking University. There was a pretty good piece with him in the last Foreign Correspondent episode on the empty cities.

The stuff can be a bit thick (his opinion is mostly surrounding balance of trade issues) but definitely worthwhile if you ask me. Especially for Aussies!

 

[CanOz]

They tend to be savers because they know the government will not look after them later on in life. Hence the nation of great consumers coming down the line is a bit of a naive joke. Though there is plenty of consuming in the prince-ling class.

I wonder who is really

naive

....Those who know the g'mint won't look after them :nono: and save everything for the future...or those that still believe the g'mint will look after them and spend everything:1zhelp:?

It disgusts me how everyone talks about how corrupt this G'mint may be, but yet tolerate how corrupt the US government has clearly shown it self to be...not only are they and the bloody bankers responsible for the biggest fraud in history, but no ones even gone to jail for it!! Why bother harping on about the Chinese??? i don't get it?

CanOz

 

[notting]

I wonder who is really ....Those who know the g'mint won't look after them :nono: and save everything for the future...or those that still believe the g'mint will look after them and spend everything:1zhelp:?

Confidence is the cheapest form of stimulus -/freedom/human rights/self-determination/confidence/consumerism/prosperity.
Artificially, deflating your currency from the get go will help you win the race to the bottom. The Chines thought they would become so powerful the quickest and do the rest with force before their economy became a joke like Zimbabwe.
The West just taps currency dilution ever so gently by comparison, whilst deflation is on the cards, diluting the dumb money - Chinese trillions in foreign debt.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

It disgusts me how everyone talks about how corrupt this G'mint may be, but yet tolerate how corrupt the US government has clearly shown it self to be...not only are they and the bloody bankers responsible for the biggest fraud in history, but no ones even gone to jail for it!! Why bother harping on about the Chinese??? i don't get it?

CanOz

No, I think there is ever growing & palpable anger amongst Americans too at both their elected 'representatives' and big business. For that matter, the world over there is indecision and confusion resulting in hung parliaments or like we have here, controlled by a handfull of fruit loops.

The reason why I try to highlight China is

1. we are practically at their mercy economically,
2. their data is suspect
3. their economics is not sustainable
4. go to point 1

For example, and from memory, local government debt is officially something like $2.2T while foreign reserves are like $3T. A lot of that debt simply won't be paid back because the projects that the money went into are not economically viable - showing up in the deteriorating distressed loans data. That money was borrowed from bank depositors - I'm not sure how they account for this?? Does the central bank just print more like all other CB's?

There may or may not be a lot of cash under beds, but if/when they get their hard landing will it be any good to them? Their big problem is that they are not spending enough of their saving to replace the loss of foreign earnings - the great re-balancing. As far as not paying tax - sounds a little like Greece, see how they ended up?

Looking at the big picture, here we are 5 or so years since the start of the GFC and what have we got? A slowing global economy, several countries already in recession, trillions more in debt and nothing to show for it??

Like I've said many times before, I'm neither an optimist or a pessimist - the facts take care of themselves, eventually. The only problem I see for the glass half full mob is that they will always be disappointed when reality finally dawns.

It's going to get ugly irrespective of what I say or do, just the timing is unknown.......I'm surprised they have kicked it along this far.

 

[notting]

Selling Property the Chinese way.
Love your citizens -
http://www.tchrd.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=a%20rticle&id=243:tibetans-sentenced-for-corruption-protest&catid=70:2012-news&Itemid=162

 

[CanOz]

[SUP][/SUP]

Selling Property the Chinese way.
Love your citizens -
http://www.tchrd.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=a%20rticle&id=243:tibetans-sentenced-for-corruption-protest&catid=70:2012-news&Itemid=162

Notting, it's not good is it? When a country treats their minorities poorly, it gets covered up.

Perhaps you can think of some crimes against other minorities in other countries too? Or do you just like picking on China?

I have nothing against you always citing the worst about China. I dislike the fact that you only seem to do this with China. This makes you seem like a hypocrit, as I'm sure you recall Australia's past....and present?

CanOz

 

[notting]

There is nothing like China's present.
The cruelty, cunning and scale is unprecedented, as the Canadian minister said.
It's a tolerated holocaust. No one is sending in UN investigations etc.
Not many people knew about the Jews as it happened but people feel it's still worth flagging and say 'never again' and 'lest we forget' and feel 'we would not tolerate this kind of thing if it was happening now' but carry on about China as if it's all OK!
Besides it's good to know how China's dictators sell property and create their economy and economic statistics as we view them as our most important trading partner!
http://www.tchrd.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=a%20rticle&id=243:tibetans-sentenced-for-corruption-protest&catid=70:2012-news&Itemid=162

 

[CanOz]

Yes, it's a horrible part of this country. As is Australia's treatment of the aboriginies, north Americas native Indian genocide.

CanOz

 

[drsmith]

Alan Kohler plonked the following graphic up on the ABC news yesterday evening.

 

[Joules MM1]

'Anti-Goldilocks' China Data Not Enough To Move Needle

on 07/12/2012 22:53 -0400

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/anti-goldilocks-china-data-not-enough-move-needle

A fractional miss of estimates for GDP growth (printing at +7.6% vs expectations of +7.7%) coupled with a just-as-fractional beat in Retail Sales (+13.7% YoY vs expectations of +13.4%) seems to be the perfect remedy for a global-depression-expecting and/or massive-stimulus-hungry market. GDP growth was its slowest since March 2009 but it appears the 'sell the rumor, buy the news crowd' are disappointed. S&P 500 futures popped a few pts and then faded back - remaining around +3pts for now (and EUR rallied into the number, sold off on the print and is now limping back higher). As we noted earlier, this is not the data you have been looking for - instead focus on hot money flows and the property pop, as the Chinese continue to impress with their 'data' showing the first engineered 'soft-landing' in history.

 

[Joules MM1]

Forget China's Goal-Seeked GDP Tonight; This Is The Chart That Keeps The PBOC Up At Night

on 07/12/2012 20:12 -0400

(as Stratfor's analysis of the record high prices paid just this week for Beijing property - by an SOE no less - and its massive 'microcosm' insight into the bubbliciousness of the PBOC's attempts to stave off the inevitable 'landing'); to the rather shocking insight that Diapason Commodities' Sean Corrigan offers that 'Hot Money Flows' have left China at a rates exceeding that during the worst of the Lehman crisis; take a range of key indicators – from electricity usage, to Shanghai container throughput, to nationwide rail freight ton-miles, to steel output – and you will notice that none of these shows a rate of growth during the second quarter of more than 4% from 2011, and some are as low as 1%.

 

[Joules MM1]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-china-banks-idUSBRE87501T20120806

China's answer to subprime bets: the "Golden Elephant"

excerpt

(Reuters) - The Chinese investment vehicle known as "Golden Elephant No. 38" promises buyers a 7.2 percent return per year. That's more than double the rate offered on savings accounts nationally.

Absent from the product's prospectus is any indication of the asset underpinning Golden Elephant: a near-empty housing project in the rural town of Taihe, at the end of a dirt path amid rice fields in one of China's poorest provinces.

"ON PAPER..."

The trusts, also called "shadow banks", create the wealth management products and then give them to banks to sell to their customers.

The bank staff Reuters spoke to stressed the low-risk nature of the products, despite the higher-than-normal returns being promised. They often could not say where the proceeds of the product would be invested.

"On paper, these are not principal guaranteed but you don't have to worry about that," said a wealth manager at a local branch of Bank of Communications, China's No. 5 lender. "All our clients who've previously bought these products got their principal plus interest back."

It is not entirely clear who bears the risk if the products default.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-china-banks-idUSBRE87501T20120806

China's answer to subprime bets: the "Golden Elephant"

excerpt

At last, a modern name for a golden oldie - Ponzi - shall now henceforth be known as Golden Elephants!

Last to leave please turn the lights off......

 

[Bushman]

That export engine is starting to splutter badly.

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- China's trade surplus unexpected narrowed in July as exports barely grew from the year-earlier month and imports increased at a smaller rate, according to data released Friday. The trade surplus for the month dropped to $25.1 billion from $31.7 billion in June, falling way short of estimates for a surplus of $35.2 billion in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of economists. Exports rose just 1% from the year-ago period, while imports expanded 4.7%, compared to expectations for an 8% rise in exports and a 7% rise in imports. In June, China's exports rose 11.3%, while imports increased 6.3%. Shares in Hong Kong extended losses after the disappointing data, with the Hang Seng Index /quotes/zigman/2622475 HK:HSI -0.60% sliding 0.7% to 20,138.68.

 

[Joules MM1]

China factory sector shrinks most in 9 months: survey



By Lucy Hornby

BEIJING | Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:56pm EDT

excerpt

China's factories contracted in August the most in nine months according to a survey showing falling export orders and rising inventories, signs that more policy action is probably needed to stop a slowdown in economic growth now in a seventh quarter.

The HSBC Flash China manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 47.8 in August, its lowest level since November, down from both the 49.5 July flash and the 49.3 final reading.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/23/us-china-economy-flash-pmi-idUSBRE87M03G20120823